


Epiphany

by Franzeska



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Case Fic, Fanfiction, First Time, Future Fic, Holidays, M/M, Nothing specific about The Hanging Tree, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 04:41:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8876404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Franzeska/pseuds/Franzeska
Summary: Nightingale won't let himself be done in by a murderous mummers' play: he'd never live it down!





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rhea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/gifts).



**December 22nd: Peter**

The hallway outside the morgue looked like institutional hallways the world over. This one hadn't been properly cleaned in months: a mop had left mucky streaks by the wall. A dark stripe down the center showed the areas of heaviest foot traffic.

I took a breath.

It _smelled_ like institutional hallways the world over as well, and under that, the persistent hospital smell of death. You never get it out of your nose. The first time you encounter a body on duty, it changes you. The first time it's a friend… I didn't know what it was like yet, actually, how much it would come back to haunt me, whether I'd wake up screaming with Molly standing over me. I didn't want to know either, which is why I was loitering in the greasy hallway of a third-rate local nick three days before Christmas, thinking about mops and bleach and not Thomas Nightingale stretched out on the slab inside.

❧

**October: Nightingale**

I lost him long before the end. To be perfectly accurate, I never had him. The Folly fought a slow war of attrition with Beverley Brook, first for Peter's belongings and then for Peter himself.

In the eighth year of his apprenticeship, I bowed to the inevitable and suggested he move out. One can't cling to tradition forever. The Folly settled back into its post-Ettersberg slumber, like a piece of amber with me as the mosquito caught within. For two years, things were quiet—or as quiet as they ever were with magic reawakening and new forms of magical crime sprouting like mushrooms all over London.

The Case of the Murderous Mummers began one wet night in October in the tenth year of Peter's apprenticeship. I had been reading a battered copy of _Sparkling Cyanide_ , my thought process turned alliterative and full of unwarranted nostalgia for my youth. Rain pinged on the skylight of the carriage house. The muffled sounds of New Zealand trouncing South Africa drifted from Peter's enormous television. It was one of the few objects Peter had left behind. I still marveled at its size and clarity. The match was less impressive.

Molly shifted next to me on the sofa. Her pale face had not changed in all the years I had known her. Perhaps I was a fly after all, and Molly the mosquito.

"Just feeling melancholy," I said in response to her look. "I'm going for a walk."

I abandoned book and match alike for my coat and the bracing air of an October evening. Desultory rain slicked the pavement. My boots echoed wetly in the empty street. I turned to a shop window as I passed. My own face looked back—the same vaguely middle-aged face that had looked back at me for a decade. It was the sort of autumn weather that makes one feel one's age, and I have more to feel than most.

Inside the shop window, child-size mannequins displayed "wizard robes" and pointed hats. I wondered if I could escape the holiday season without a Harry Potter-themed gift. Garish jack-o-lanterns grinned at me from the display like death's heads. Intimations of mortality—or of crass American consumerism flooding our holiday season.

I was making for the newsagent's on the corner when I was struck by the smell of nutmeg and a deep, booming laugh. _Vestigia._

It led me around the corner and down two blocks. The laughter grew. It was a jolly sound entirely out of keeping with the season. Steel rang on steel, like a fencing match. This vestigium was strong, and not one I recognized.

It came from a coffee house, closed for the night. I cupped my hands to the glass and made out a sliver of light coming from the back room.

Steel rang out again. Then a cry. Not the vestigium. A woman.

I dashed across the darkened cafe and flattened myself against the wall almost before the lock hit the floor. The door to the back room slammed open. Something sailed past me and crashed against one of the tables. A bottle of cider if my nose did not deceive me. From the other room, a voice began to recite:

"King George is my name,  
sword and pistol by my side,  
I hope to win the game."

A different male voice cried out in fear.

I peered around the corner. A youth lay on the floor, one hand flung up to protect himself. Blood trickled from a cut on his chest. A young woman crouched behind him, another bottle of cider in her hand.

"George!" she cried. "Snap out of it."

The figure I presumed to be George stood over them. His back was too me, but I could see he was a caucasian man of average build. He wore a strange shirt covered in ribbons. I recognized it as the traditional garb of a mummer, which explained the doggerel, but not the sword in his hand. The lights glinted off of it as he prepared to strike; it was sharp as a razor, and no mummers' prop.

A quick impello sent it arcing over the couple on the floor to embed itself in the far wall. I stepped into the room. "Police! Raise your hands above your head."

All three turned to look at me. They appeared young, no more than early twenties. The two on the floor wore university sweatshirts.

"Police," I said again.

George's eyes were unfocused, staring vaguely in my direction.

The woman scrambled to her knees. "There's something wrong with him."

George's head swung towards her, then towards the far wall. He looked down at his empty hand.

The vestigium receded. I waited a moment. George made no move toward the sword. The other two watched him nervously. "What happened here?" I asked.

"We were practicing," said the man on the floor. "The sword…"

"He went mad," the woman said at the same time.

"It's just a prop," said the man.

George's gaze finally focussed. "Oh my god," he said, taking a staggering step towards his fellow. "Oh my god, Baz."

"Stay where you are, please." I laid a hand on his arm. I could feel the aftereffects of the spell; the vestigium was still passing off.

His arm trembled. "Oh my god."

"I think you'd better sit down, sir," I said, guiding him to the floor. I showed them my warrant card. "Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale. Sir, are you hurt?"

Baz, one Barry Harris, was shaken, but his wound was superficial. I checked it for vestigia; it was clean.

The young woman introduced herself as Valerie Martin. She was shift manager at the coffee house, giving her access to the key and an ideal rehearsal space for the student theatrical group to which the three of them belonged. Currently, they were 'exploring a postmodern approach to traditional British theatrical forms'—in other words, mummers' plays.

"And where did you acquire the prop sword?" I asked. It stuck out of the wall, two feet of brightly-painted wood. Not an illusion, I thought. The cut on Mr. Harris' chest was thin and precise. The prop had evidently transformed in George's—Mr. Morgan's—hand and back again when separated from its victim. The three of them glanced nervously at it as Valerie explained that it had come from an old box of props in the attic of her grandmother's house. They assured me that there had been no prior bad feeling amongst the group. Mr. Morgan had no idea what had come over him: he had suddenly found himself reciting lines from a traditional mummers' play and attempting to skewer his friend.

"Am I…" Mr. Morgan coughed. "That is… Could it happen again?"

"Doubtful. The effects began to wear off as soon as the object left your hand." I gingerly wrapped my handkerchief around the pommel and drew it from the wall. The smell of nutmeg washed over me. The clash of steel was barely perceptible in the vestigia now.

"So… it was really… magic?" Mr. Morgan glanced at his friend's wound.

"I'm afraid so."

"Will _you_ be all right?" Ms. Martin asked.

"I have experience with such items." I wrapped the thing in my scarf. It was quiescent for the moment.

"Like an auror!" Baz said. The color had returned to his face.

I sighed. "Yes, I suppose rather like that."

❧

A gaping smile split the jack-o-lantern nearly in half. The air smelled of singed pumpkin. I was hiding in the corner between the refreshment table and the jack-o-lantern display at Beverley Brook's Hallowe'en party. I had planned to spend the weekend inspecting the home of Ms. Martin's grandmother for cursed theatrical props, but the opportunity to 'liaise with key members of the community' was not to be missed, or so Peter informed me.

I was busy liaising with a bottle of stout and wondering if the jack-o-lantern would collapse in on itself when Peter found me. He detached a child dressed as a pirate from his neck and sent her running across the lawn to Effra. I could just see the edge of his smile as he stared after her. It looked wistful, but when he turned to me, his mouth curved into an uncomplicated grin to rival the pumpkin. "What's your costume then, sir?" he asked.

"A wizard."

Peter laughed. "Now, that's not fair. It's Hallowe'en. Dressing up is half the fun." Like the child, Peter was dressed as a pirate. His billowing shirt hung open at the neck, revealing a triangle of skin shining with sweat. The shirt was tucked into a scarlet sash and skin-tight breeches. Leather boots and a tricorne hat with a feather completed the look.

"Back in my day, we mainly celebrated Guy Fawkes," I said. "Fewer costumes. More explosions."

"Yeah, yeah, I know: merry old England under siege from dangerous foreign holidays. Englishness itself under attack."

I chuckled. It was an uncanny impression of the newsreader with the asthmatic wheeze. Peter and I must have watched the same program.

"Come on, you must have had fancy dress parties at least. Pierrots and Cleopatras and all that."

"I doubt I have the legs for Cleopatra."

Peter choked on his beer. "Oh god. You did not just give me that image."

"Bessy, perhaps. From the mummers' play."

"Did you put them on at the Folly?"

"No, at school." And there was the blasted nostalgia again, a bittersweet wallowing that had swallowed most of the month. I shook myself.

"You wore a dress?" Peter asked. He leaned forward, eyes lighting up at the mention of my past.

"As I recall, the one time I was asked to participate, I played the fool." Something chilly crawled down my spine. Beverly Brook stood a few feet away, watching us.

"Uh, right, I was getting refills," Peter said and turned to the refreshment table.

I didn't ask about the awkward atmosphere. It was none of my business any longer—that is, it had never been any of my business—and Peter would soon cease to be even nominally my apprentice. It was time to think about taking on another.

❧

**November 3rd: Peter**

It was the Hallowe'en party that did it. We were in bed a few nights later. Bev rolled off of me, turned her back, and told me it was over. "The sex is great, Peter," she said, "But it's like you're not _here_."

I lay there thinking of what to say. The ceiling over Bev's bed was covered in that spray-on plaster coating that was popular in the 1960's. I wondered if it had been checked for asbestos. My own bedroom in the Folly had carved wooden moldings. I hadn't slept there in a couple of years, but it looked exactly the same. Even after he'd shooed me out, Nightengale hadn't changed the room. Why would he? The Folly has piles of empty rooms, and I was still technically his apprentice.

I wouldn't be for much longer though. In our hectic meetings between crime scenes and paperwork and my increasingly awkward liaising with the Rivers, he'd informed me that he was preparing my final test. First thing after the holidays, that would be it: Nightengale could take a new apprentice, and I could move out of the Folly. Except I'd already moved out.

"It's all right, Peter," Bev said. "It was bound to happen eventually."

She sounded tired. So it wasn't going to be a row then, just us sliding further and further apart. I wondered if Lady Ty would be pleased. Maybe not: We got on these days.

"I could go," I said.

"What, home?"

I shrugged. Nightingale stayed up late. He was probably sitting up with a book right now.

"And have your mother after me? No thank you! You can go in the morning."

"I was thinking of the Folly."

Bev sighed. "Sometimes, I really wonder about you, Peter," she said.

❧

I slammed the car door and took a deep breath. The air smelled of old leather and wood. Upstairs, the tech cave was deserted. An Agatha Christie novel was squashed open on the couch. I put a beer mat in it as a bookmark and tucked it in my pocket.

"Sir," I called.

The entrance hall echoed. I'd have to tell him about me and Bev what with showing up so late, but I'd have to tell him sooner or later. I hoped it wasn't too awkward with her family.

"Sir?"

The library was dark. All of the libraries were dark. I tapped on his bedroom door and stuck my head in when I got no answer. I haven't been in there more than a handful of times, but I'd know it was the right room even if I'd never seen it before. It was Nightingale all over: row after row of bespoke suits and handmade leather shoes, thousand-count sheets, and a lot of musty paperbacks on the bedside table. I left the Christie and went hunting.

I found Molly in the kitchen scrubbing an enormous tureen.

"Where's the boss then?" I asked her.

She looked annoyed.

"Away?" 

You get a sense of Molly's expressions after a while. I don't know how she does it, but I knew Nightingale hadn't just stepped out; he'd gone off somewhere. It hadn't occurred to me. I suppose I'd pictured him welcoming the prodigal son home, which was ridiculous since I'd just seen him at the Hallowe'en party, but I felt oddly let down as I trooped back to the tech cave.

Sure enough, there was an email from him. I'd have seen it on my phone if I'd bothered to check: _Have a lead on props,_ it said. _Out of town for a few days._ Nightingale emailed like he was sending a telegram, especially when he was in a hurry. He'd left the address where he was staying, a historic hotel in Cornwall that was easily as old as the Folly and about twice as covered in carvings and historical bric-a-brac. (I googled it. There were photos.)

❧

**November 5th: Nightingale**

When I finally pulled the jag into its parking spot in the coach house, Peter's car was there. The television was on in the tech cave, and I could hear the sound of Peter's laughter and the clink of a bottle. I had the oddest feeling of being transported back in time; I almost expected to find Lesley May sharing a beer with him.

When I reached the top of the stairs, it turned out to be Jaget Kumar instead. He raised his bottle to me. "The man himself," he said.

I made a polite noise of inquiry.

"We were just looking for explosions and fire," he said, waving the television remote.

It was muted. On the screen, a young woman in a blue anorak stood in front of a bonfire. The words 'Hooliganism on Bonfire Night' took up the lower part of the image.

"Welcome home, sir." Peter got up and came over to me. "Here." He reached for my bag.

"Best not. It had a regrettable effect on the last person to touch it. Ah, the last person other than me, that is," I said in reaction to his look.

Peter still looked dubious. I could tell he was surreptitiously checking me for injuries. "You found what you were after?" he asked.

"One of them." My shoulder made a series of cracks as I rolled it: the drive had been longer than enjoyable, even in a proper car. "There are supposedly three of the swords, each potentially lethal, and only two of them contained in the folly."

"Do I want to know?" Kumar asked.

"Props," I said. "Cursed props." I unwrapped the sword part way. It was brightly painted wood like the first one, but the vestigia were weaker, the magic not as vicious. "Designed to turn a simple mummers' play into a bloodbath—God knows why."

"Are you all right, sir?" Peter shifted from foot to foot.

"Perfectly fine. This one only addled the wielder: He'd succeeded in driving it through a fence post before I arrived." I rewrapped the sword. "The entire troupe was waiting for me—in full regalia no less. They couldn't get rid of the thing fast enough." I hefted the bag again. On the television, the young woman began to gesture wildly. It looked like someone had dumped gasoline on the bonfire. "Don't let me interrupt your program," I said.

"You're not interrupting." Peter followed me into the building proper. "I'm glad it was as simple as that. Your email was a little… uh… abrupt. I wouldn't have wanted to have to charge off to Cornwall after you." He said it with a studied casualness that told me he'd practiced it in his head.

"I can think of no one I would rather have as back up," I told him. I pretended not to notice him blushing.

I wrapped the sword in another several layers of white silk and put it in the crate with the first one. The storage room in the Folly would do for now until I determined whether and how to destroy the objects.

"Mrs. Granville—Valerie Martin's grandmother—wasn't able to give me a full description of the box," I told Peter. "But she was certain there were only three swords originally. One for St. George, one for the Turkish Knight, and one for the other combatant."

"Other combatant?" Peter settled himself against the edge of a shelf as I finished locking the swords up.

"In her youth, they performed a variant with multiple rounds of fighting. Just be glad it wasn't a sword dance: then we'd be tracking down five or six of them." This part of the storeroom was cramped; I had to turn sideways to slide past Peter. He put a hand on my arm, and all the little hairs stood on end.

"All the same, I hope you'll be careful, sir."

"I won't let myself be done in by a mummers' play," I told him. "I'd never live it down."

Peter laughed.

❧

**December 20th: Nightingale**

"Bad news, sir," he said. "There's only one room left."

It was raining, we were in the northern end of nowhere, and there was no sign of the blasted sword. I had narrowed my suspects to a Mr. Joseph Hunt who had tried to buy the box of props before it went missing. He organized the local mummers' play. He was also a morris dancer, a historical re-enactor, and the local brewer of historically accurate Medieval ale. We had turned up many fascinating anecdotes about his exploits but not the man himself.

We trudged upstairs. The bed loomed in the center of the room. I changed in the bathroom.

Peter wore his tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt with holes in the armpits. His skin shone through when he stretched. I got into the bed hurriedly, averting my eyes. Even in a full set of pajamas, I felt naked.

It took Peter some time to join me. I wondered if he felt the awkwardness as much as I did.

There had been a time when I routinely shared a bedroll, but I'd been young then and they'd been fellow members of the Folly, not apprentices and certainly not my own apprentice. The bed dipped as he turned around again, settling.

The mattress was the sort that sags in the middle. I had to hold myself rigid to keep from rolling into him. Peter's breathing slowed, but I could tell he was still awake. My shoulders were stiff with tension.

Finally, he spoke: "Sir… we're never going to get to sleep like this." I felt him roll towards me again. "It's the bed. We'll just end up in the center as soon as we relax anyway."

His hand came down on my shoulder. I jerked.

"Look, just… pretend it's not weird, okay?"

He tugged me down into the center of the bed till my back was pressed all along his front.

"It's warmer."

His breath tickled the nape of my neck. It was certainly warmer. I was having a most inappropriate reaction. Luckily, Peter wasn't similarly affected, though I could feel the tension in his body.

"This way we won't roll around so much," he said.

I made a noncommittal noise. I hoped it would sound like a man seriously considering his job for tomorrow, and not a man who was contemplating how much nicer it would in fact have been to roll around with his apprentice.

"Comfortable, sir?" He paused. "I could rub your shoulders…"

"Be careful tomorrow," I said repressively. "The third sword could be as weak as the second, but it's best not to take any chances. If you spot it, find me at once." Peter did not repeat the offer.

It had been a long time since someone had held me, but gradually, I managed to relax. It was even pleasant, in a disturbing way. I drifted off while reciting Latin declensions in my head and willing my body to forget exactly who it was pressed up against.

❧

**December 21st: Nightingale**

Joseph Hunt lived outside the village in a cottage surrounded by rose bushes and large wooden barrels I identified as dyeing vats. He was attempting to recreate a particular historical color for one of his costumes, he informed us. No, he didn't have the box of props. He'd gone to see Mrs. Granville, but she wouldn't sell it to him. When he'd seen it, there had been just one sword, a mistletoe prop, a fool's cap—very much the worse for wear—and a rotting piece of fabric that might once have been part of another costume.

"I heard it was a complete set of mummers' things," he said. "Joey—that's my son—would have taken the mistletoe as was, but she wouldn't sell."

Hunt's kitchen was a pleasant, sunny space with almost no perceptible vestigia for such an old building. I wondered if he had built the house recently but in a historical style. If so, it wasn't apparent to my untrained eye. Perhaps Peter would have an opinion when he returned from snooping around the yard.

"Your son?" I inquired. "Is he also a mummer?"

Hunt sighed. "Joey's not much for history—not the real sort anyway. He's more of a revisionist."

I sipped my tea and looked interested.

"It's not that I'm against it. It's not that at all. It's just that it's not _historical_ , and there's no use pretending it is." He began to gesture. "One reference in Pliny, and every young fool who's read a fantasy novel is faffing about in bed sheets and climbing up oak trees."

Joseph Hunt Jr. was a member—no, the founder—of something called the Neo-Druidic Order. They wore white, gathered mistletoe, and did violence to his father's feelings as an amateur historian.

"The only thing he paid attention to was the mistletoe," Hunt said. "But if you want to talk to him, they're probably up at those fake standing stones the hippies put up on the hill." He waved his hand toward the back garden. "Go out the gate and follow the path. You can't miss them."

❧

I was part way up the path when the same vestigium from the coffee house hit me: nutmeg and laughter and swords striking swords.

Mrs. Granville might not have sold, but the third sword was here all the same, and it felt stronger than either of the others. I quickened my pace.

At the top of the hill stood six enormous blocks of stone, clearly hewn by modern methods and erected without the traditional ditch and mound earthworks. There were no druids, historically accurate or otherwise. Instead, Peter stood in the center of the circle, a gleaming sword in his hand.

When he saw me, his face lit up with manic glee, and he began to speak in a voice wholly unlike his own. It raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

"In comes I the Turkish Knight,  
Come from the Turkish land to fight,  
To fight King George and all his men  
Before I do return again."

"Peter!" I called. But there was nothing of Peter in his expression as he came at me.

❧

**December 21st: Peter**

The wizard—Nightingale—parried. My sword clanged off of his cane.

"Fight it!" he called to me.

I swept the sword under his guard, but he was faster. He jumped back. I just caught the edge of his coat.

I snarled in frustration. I knew what needed to be done. No one would stop me. I felt the spell as soon as he began. It whizzed by me as I dodged. I rushed him, only to be pushed back by a force like a fist. It slapped me to the floor.

My ears rang like a gong. The enemy stood over me, saying something. I had to move. I knew I had to move. Thank god the sword was still in my hand.

I lunged at him. This time, I caught him across one arm. A gash opened in the coat, and a thin line of blood appeared on the flesh underneath. It wasn't enough. It wasn't what I needed.

He danced around me, weaving his spells. "It's me, Peter. You have to fight this."

I snarled.

"Talk to me. What are you feeling?"

"You're trying to trick me," I said. The buzzing in my head was unbearable. "You're trying to poison me." I wiped at my nose. My hand came away bloody.

He blanched.

"Afraid of a little blood?" I asked. "You'll see a lot more when I'm done with you."

"Peter, please."

"Stop saying that. That's not my name." Only it _was_ my name—but _not_ at the same time. God, my head was killing me.

His face set. I thought he was gearing up for something big. A fireball, maybe. I had to stop him before he put me down.

My sword clanged off of his cane again. His _impello_ nearly broke my wrist, but I kept hold somehow. It was like my hand was glued to the pommel. More blood dripped from my nose. I wiped at it with my free hand.

"Stop. _Please._ "

He threw another desperate _impello_ at me. I felt it inside. It made my nosebleed worse, but I couldn't stop fighting.

"Peter, listen to me: it's the mistletoe. You must get the mistletoe."

I know I heard him, I remembered the words later, but at the time, all I heard was the rushing in my ears, and the words that tumbled out of my mouth: "I challenge thee. King George, the man of courage bold," I said. "If thy blood's hot I soon will make it cold."

And then I ran him through.

The blade sank into his gut with a satisfying, meaty squelch. I pushed in until the hilt pressed against his stomach. He clutched at my shoulders, his mouth open in a gasp. I could feel his muscles contracting around the blade. His eyes shone more blue than gray. "Peter!" he gasped out, and it was my name after all.

"Sir!"

He slowly sank to his knees and toppled over.

I fell to my knees beside him. I tried to put my hands on the wound, but it only made the blade carve him up worse. Blood welled around my fingers.

"Peter…" His face was a white rictus of pain, his voice barely a whisper.

"Sir, hold on. I'll get someone."

"No time," he whispered. "Mistletoe."

" _Bugger_ the mistletoe!"

"Important," he mumbled. There was blood on his lips.

"Listen to me," I tried to hold his head straight. "Listen, you have to hang on." My other hand was sticky with blood. It was everywhere. Hot tears trickled down my cheeks. "Why didn't you stop me? You put a hole in a _tank_."

He touched my face. "Swore…" He coughed. More blood bubbled out of his mouth. "... protect you."

"Then don't _leave_ me."

But he was already fading. His eyes unfocused, not looking at me anymore, not looking at anything anymore, and his hand relaxed. I caught it in mine, held it against my cheek. I don't think he could feel it. I doubt he felt it when I pulled him onto my lap or heard it when I began to cry in earnest.

❧

**December 22nd: Peter**

I loitered in the hallway outside of the morgue for half an hour. Finally, when I couldn't stand my own cowardice anymore, I went in.

He lay on one of the autopsy tables, stark naked. They hadn't bothered with a sheet. My eye was drawn inexorably across his pale skin to the grotesque deformity of the wound. It was like so much raw meat.

I forced myself to walk to him. It. _Him._

His face was serene. It would have been funny if I hadn't wanted to be sick. They'd washed him off, and he was perfect everywhere else. A thin trail of brown hair led down from his navel. He had a mole on one thigh. It stood out against the milky skin. Looking at him like that nauseated me. For a man who always wore at least three layers of clothing, this had to be the ultimate indignity. But I couldn't look away. I steeled myself.

Up close, the wound was a pulpy mess. I tried to breathe past the scent of disinfectant. His aftershave, some fancy French stuff, still clung to him. That nearly undid me, but I pressed on. There was something there. Faint, but there. Nutmeg. Someone laughing.

I wrenched myself away. I had what I needed. If the same vestigium clung to the rest of the box, I would find it.

❧

It took me most of the day to get an address on the druids. Hunt had fucked off somewhere, leaving a weaselly little bloke named Curtis Walsh in charge.

"You got it with the sword," I said, for the third time. "Mistletoe. It's a prop, like from a mummers' play." I didn't shake him. It was a near thing.

"I don't know anything about a sword—"

"I took it off of your friend Hunt. Cough up the rest or you'll be liable for holding stolen goods as well."

"Mistletoe is one of our sacred plants. It's only normal for us to—"

"It's stolen property."

He backed up a step. "It's none of your business."

"There's an officer dead. A personal friend of mine. That's his blood all over my clothes, and his last request was for me to get this fucking mistletoe back."

He swallowed, looked at me, and stepped aside. "It's in the back room. The box is marked 'cleaning supplies'."

It was on a shelf directly in eyeline from the door. They hadn't even taped it shut. I lifted the mistletoe out. It was arranged in a ball with a loop of red ribbon at one end. A vestigium like singing washed over me. Carolers at Christmas, plus the nutmeg and laughter from before. It should have been pleasant. It made my skin prickle.

I couldn't arrest Walsh for anything. There was no evidence he'd stolen the box himself, no evidence the Neo-Druidic Order was up to anything more sinister than wearing silly outfits and chanting. I wanted to punch something. In the 60's it would have been a useful emotion for a copper, but currently, it just made me sound constipated. "Stay away from magic, Mr. Walsh," I told him. "The consequences aren't worth it."

❧

I went back to the morgue. It seemed like the thing to do. There was an attendant hovering this time, but he cleared out when I came in. I don't know what he saw in my face.

I pulled up a chair and sat down next to him. There still wasn't a sheet. We sat there for a while, me rolling the silk scarf with the mistletoe in it around in my hands, Nightingale cooling next to me. There was no sign of rigor yet.

"I found it," I said. "It wasn't even difficult. We could have walked in there any time…" I rolled it around in my hands some more. "Sir…"

The terrible industrial linoleum squeaked. You couldn't walk on the stuff and be quiet. In my state, I nearly missed it anyway.

I ducked.

Something whooshed through the air just where my head had been. I turned and slammed into the guy as he completed his swing, and we went over on the ground. _Hunt._

He got me in the gut. I wheezed and lost my grip on him.

Before I could think, he was on his feet, mistletoe in hand. I yanked hard on his ankles.

The bundle flew from his grasp onto the table above as Hunt crashed down on me. We grappled. He had more upper body strength. I had more fury. I got him facedown in a chokehold, but he wouldn't quit.

"It's ours," he spat. "It's special."

"It's stolen goods."

"I'm a druid. It is my sacred birthright—"

He squirmed and choked himself on my arm. Served him right. "Stop struggling."

"You don't understand: we need it. It's _magic_."

"It certainly is," said a voice from above. A weak voice, but unmistakable.

I sat up sharply. The scarf had come loose from the mistletoe and fallen across his legs. The mistletoe itself… The mistletoe itself was clutched in both of Nightingale's hands. I looked up into his eyes. "Peter?" he said. "Peter, are you all right?"

❧

I'm told I fainted on the suspect. Well, I ask you, what would _you_ have done?

By the time I'd come to, the morgue was full of shouting people, and someone had found Nightingale a change of clothes. He was busily ordering the locals around in the spirit of interdepartmental collaboration that makes us big city coppers so beloved in the countryside.

Hunt was so rattled by the naked zombie policeman incident that he spilled everything: His father was mad for historical recreations, from dressing up in Medieval kit to reviving the local mummers' play. He'd got wind of a rumor about a magical ball of mistletoe, and Junior's fevered imagination had done the rest. The old woman was the granddaughter of the last head of the local play. Easy enough for a genealogist to track. And when she'd refused to sell the lot to his father, Hunt Jr. had resorted to other means.

We didn't get back to our hotel until past three in the morning. By that time, I was too wired to sleep. Nightingale looked calm and unflappable as always: he had sent for his real clothing at once. The interview was conducted in his usual three-piece suit.

We went up to our room. It could have been the day before, or any day. He sat on the bed and began unlacing his shoes. He was saying something inconsequential about driving times to London. His jaw was smooth, no five-o'clock shadow. The hair must not have grown while he was… well, while he was dead.

"Peter, are you listening to me at all?" he asked.

I tore my eyes away from his waistcoat.

He looked worried.

"I'm sorry," I blurted.

"Peter…"

"No, don't make excuses. You told me to be careful with the thing, and it got me anyway."

"No harm done." He smiled wanly.

I laughed. I kept seeing blood all over his pristine replacement suit. "I'd hate to see your definition of real harm then."

"I realised as we were fighting: they're all mummers' props. The sword kills; the mistletoe revives."

"And you're telling me this now?"

"You weren't exactly amenable to conversation at the time." He scrubbed his face. "I'd only just figured it out myself, and I couldn't be sure. I wouldn't want to raise false hope."

I nearly choked at that. "I would have let them _autopsy_ you. If Hunt hadn't gotten it into his head to attack me, you'd be rotting in the ground right now!"

"Peter, I am _all right_."

"Show me." I knelt by the bed. "Let me see."

I undid the buttons on his waistcoat one by one and pushed it open. His shirt buttons were smaller, fiddly. When I'd gotten the last one, I pushed the cotton out of the way. His skin above the waistband of his trousers was unblemished. I ran my fingers over it. He was warm; his skin gave off so much heat it warmed the air around him. A shiver went through his torso.

I glanced up. His nipple hardened to a little peak. I could see he was carefully not looking at me. At his apprentice, on my knees in his bedroom. _Oh._

"Sir?" I asked.

His erection pressed against his trousers. I rubbed circles on his thigh with my thumb. His cheeks were going pink. I knew he was aware of his response, and he knew I'd seen.

"You're still my apprentice," he said.

"Not for much longer."

His cock twitched against my grip. I rubbed it through the fabric.

"You've just had a shock," Nightingale said halfheartedly, but he didn't try to move my hand.

I got him out. Pale pink, uncut. He smelled musky with arousal.

I'd gotten enough blow jobs. I knew the theory. I cautiously lowered my mouth to the crown of his cock.

Nightingale moaned.

I knew the theory, yes, I didn't know how he'd taste. I didn't know how hot it would be even when he stopped being careful and shoved himself down my throat. I didn't know I'd feel his pulse beating against my lips, strong and vital and alive. I jacked myself off as I sucked him.

Nightingale dug his fingers into my hair. It hurt a little: the good kind.

❧

We lay in bed together after, Nightingale stroking one hand down my side as I burrowed my face into the crook of his neck. I could feel his pulse there too, and his heartbeat under my palm.

Some of the blind panic was finally fading away.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked me.

"What, about you letting yourself be 'done in by a mummers' play' rather than throw a few spells at me?"

Nightingale sighed. "It became clear that you couldn't be separated from the sword. I don't know why you were affected more severely. I hypothesize that the swords might have a preferred type of wielder: the first one latched onto a fellow named 'George', like the hero of the play, for example. If so, the only way to get it away from you safely was to finish the play."

"By dying."

"By being revived." He stroked my cheek. "Mummers' plays end happily."

"I want to stay," I blurted out. "When my apprenticeship is done. In the Folly. With you."

His hand stilled. "You've had a shock…"

"Bugger the shock." I couldn't tell him I'd been thinking about it for a long time: I'd had no idea until we'd shared a bed and it had suddenly hit me. But maybe it _had_ been building and I was just the last to know. "Sir… I'm sure."

"All right." He went back to petting me until I fell asleep in him, my hand still pressed to his heartbeat.

❧

I didn't change my mind, of course, not about any of it. Nightingale was so visibly relieved that I didn't have the heart to tease him about it. He scheduled my final test for January 6th, Epiphany, which is either theologically confusing or a sign of a rather unfortunate sense of humor. I'll let you be the judge.

❧

**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to nebulous for the last-minute britpick and beta. Any remaining errors I introduced in rewriting.


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